Viking Squad Developer Slick Joins Klei Entertainment

Viking Squad Developer Slick Joins Klei Entertainment

Developer Slick — the team behind games like Viking Squad, Scrap Metal, and more — has announced that it has joined Klei Entertainment, the developer you might recognize from games like Don’t Starve and Invisble, Inc.

The announcement comes as Slick celebrates its 10-year anniversary in the industry: 4 games, 6 different platforms, and one custom engine later.

Via a blog post from the developer’s official blog, founder Nick Waanders states that the 10 year journey has been “a huge roller coaster of emotions,” with “a lot of ups and downs.” Consequently, being tired of a decade of dealing with all the intricacies of running a business, Slick has decided to just concentrate on the fun part of game development: making the games. And thus, it’s joined Klei Entertainment.

Waanders continues on the blog post by stating that to many of its fans, this announcement will come as no surprise, as Slick and Klei have had a long history that started well before either company was even started. This history is referring to Klei Entertainment founder Jamie Cheng and Waanders time together at Relic Entertainment. Even when Cheng left to start Klei, the two remained friends. Then the N+ project came along, and due to Klei being bogged down with other commitments, Cheng called Waanders to see if he would want to start a company to do the project, and thus Slick Entertainment was formed.

Waandrers adds:

Over the years we have worked together on numerous occasions. We watched Klei grow from a small startup to a professional studio with an amazing level of quality, support and community. With us joining Klei, we intend to extend those qualities to the games we’ve released.

The post concludes by stating that while the team will largely be focused on making “great new games,” it will still be supporting its current games. It’s currently unclear whether or not Slick is being absorbed by Klei (and whether there is any money involved) or if Slick will serve as a type of satellite/or second studio under Klei. When we have more information, we will be sure to update the post.